Reviewed by General Gordon R. Sullivan, USA Ret., former US Army
Chief of Staff (1991-1995) and currently President of the Association of
the United States Army (AUSA).

The first impulse one has when picking up either of these two new photo
anthologies is to open it at random, pause (stunned, because these photographs
will stun you even if by chance you have seen some of the tragedy captured
on film), and then flip randomly to another page. There you'll pause again
as your brain labors to pull together all that you see, and then you'll
jump to another. There is no order to one's movement through these pictures--any
page opens, haphazardly, to a horrifying scene. Jump, pause, look. Jump,
pause, look. Anyone would recognize the rhythm--and the random nature of
the scanning exercise. Today, many soldiers recognize the countries of
origin and the suffering people--they have been there.

One has to spend time with these books--in my case several weeks--before
it becomes possible to convey a clear sense of their impact. Perhaps it
is true that a picture is worth a thousand words, but these images leave
you with none.

These pictures of war, famine, brutality, fear, and flight show images
of hopeless, dissipating lives facing another day in war zones of many
kinds around the world. These are the images that confront soldiers from
the United States and other countries. These are also the images that send
soldiers to deal with the harsh realities that generate them. Humanitarian
assistance, boundary patrols, famine relief, peacekeeping operations are
the missions that now occupy many soldiers day to day. Many people say
this role for our military is in keeping with its finest traditions. But
other observers increasingly wonder whether it should be.

This debate in American defense and military circles will only intensify
over the coming months as the presidential election heats up and as the
Quadrennial Defense Review gets under way in earnest. Serious issues are
involved. What role will the United States play in helping to solve the
problems that seem at first glance to belong to others, yet which, upon
reflection, cry out for help? What part will the US military take? Put
differently, how much of this is America's responsibility? And how much
of that responsibility will be resolved through the deployment of forces
or the use of military force?

Lines in this debate are already sharply drawn; on one side are those
who hold fiercely to the view that the United States bears no responsibility
for these calamities and that the US military should not become involved
in such kinds of operations. The Army Times implied this message
in a recent story that ran under the headline, "You Call This Soldiering?"
(by Matthew Cox, 27 March 2000, p.14). According to this view, the military's
chief--perhaps only--purpose is to deter or, if necessary, fight and win
the nation's wars. In this view, so-called Stability and Security Operations
(SASO) are ill-conceived and open-ended; they are costly and degrade readiness.
Others, however, believe that America does bear some measure of responsibility
to do what it can to prevent, limit, and end these disasters, and that
the US military is a ready and appropriate tool for the job that needs
doing.

By and large, the human misery depicted on the pages of these two books--the
famine, war, starvation, and violence--are man-made calamities. Relief
from their scourge cannot depend on divine intervention, fortuitous birth,
or chance. Indeed, it is a strange, even ironic, twist of history that
while the state system emerged over 300 years ago in part because people
accepted the protection of their sovereigns from marauding outsiders, today
most of the people in peril need the protection of outsiders from their
sovereigns.

Somewhere along the continuum of responsibility, the United States must
take its place and, as it does, address the task at hand. The world needs
our help. If our politics no longer provide a guide to action, perhaps
our values still do--and in America we value, above all, the dignity of
the individual human being and the opportunities and rights to which each
human being is entitled. We value freedom and the ability to choose. And
we value the kind of global environment that makes such choice possible.

The American military exists to protect and promote American interests.
For centuries, the American soldier has answered the nation's call to build
bridges, render aid, open roads, bring food, protect the defenseless, and
crush aggression. We have done it for Americans and we have done it for
others. To be sure, we cannot save every life, prevent every war, or alleviate
all suffering. But that does not mean that we cannot or should not do what
we can.

Look at the photos in these books. They show the business of soldiers.
Can we prevent a war's outbreak? Perhaps. Can we limit its reach? Often.
Can we end its wrath? Usually.

Make room on your shelf for Migrations and Inferno. They
are expensive, but every senior leader should own at least one of them.
Put them alongside the classics you already own. For if Killer Angels
and Combat From the Ground Up help us understand how soldiers do
what they do, these books tell us why.

In the final analysis, what we do is help prevent violent conflict,
aid the suffering, support our government, and, if necessary, fight and
win wars. These two powerful photo anthologies should give pause to all
who have served, are serving, or will serve in our armed forces. Soldiers
do not get to choose where they serve or where they fight. Their task is
to succeed so that others can live in peace and with dignity. As we see,
the need is great; as we know, the response must be greater.

A Better War:
The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America's Last Years in Vietnam.
By
Lewis Sorley. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1999. 507 pages. $28.00.
Reviewed
by Colonel Stuart A. Herrington, USA Ret.,author of Stalking
the Vietcong: Inside Operation Phoenix,and Traitors Among
Us: Inside the Spy Catcher's World.

Twenty-five years after the tragic loss of the Vietnam War, distinguished
historian and former soldier Lewis Sorley has added his voice to the growing
chorus of revisionist historians who are telling it like it really was.
In A Better War, Sorley hammers home a thesis not unfamiliar to
many of us who served in Vietnam during the post-Tet years: that America's
first lost war need not have ended in the ignominious departure of our
Ambassador from the roof of his Embassy.

The bulk of Sorley's contribution is a riveting, well-sourced, and highly
readable account of General Creighton Abrams' tenure as Commander, US Military
Assistance Command, Vietnam (COMUSMACV). This is the drama of how General
Abrams, Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker, John Paul Vann, and William Colby
pursued a whole new, "catch-up ball" approach to the war in the wake of
General William Westmoreland's discredited strategy of attrition, while
in Washington, Pentacrats and congressmen alike were intent on extracting
America from Vietnam rather than embracing a strategy or solution that
would justify American and South Vietnamese sacrifices.

Sorley's work is in many ways a companion volume to the late William
Colby's Lost Victory. Sorley supports Colby's contention that by
1969 the United States had finally "broken the code" to cope with Vietcong
penetration of Vietnam's villages and hamlets. He also reminds us that
Abrams' and Bunker's emphasis on pacification and its campaign to root
out the Vietcong infrastructure was successful (so much so that Hanoi twice
resorted to conventional warfare waged by its regular divisions in its
relentless campaign to topple the South Vietnamese government).

Citing both South Vietnamese and Vietnamese communist sources, Sorley
paints a picture quite familiar to those of us who served as advisors to
the Vietnamese in the later years of the war. Instead of districts, villages,
and hamlets--where, until 1969, bridges were out, roads were mined nightly,
and the threat of ambush was ever-present--many of us served in bustling,
prosperous rural areas where one could ride alone in a jeep on almost all
roads (as I did in 1971-72 in Hau Nghia province). This was a countryside
where farmers could grow multiple crops of miracle rice, often relieved
of the burdensome taxation of the revolution. Vietcong shadow government
cadre, deprived of support from Cambodian sanctuaries raided in 1970, rallied
to the government in record numbers, while those who refused to give up
were stalked by the territorial forces and the Phoenix program, often reduced
to hiding in remote bunkers and swamps. This was the "better war," the
way it should have been fought from the beginning.

Sorley's depiction of how General Abrams dedicated himself to this task
is compelling. This meticulously researched work benefits greatly from
his personal energy in transcribing thousands of hours of audio tapes made
during General Abrams' four-year tour as COMUSMACV from 1968 to 1972, and
working the system to declassify them.

Extensive verbatim quotes of the crusty general's remarks to his staff
during regular intelligence update briefings lend authenticity to the account.
They give the reader the sense of being present in the MACV Command Center
as Abrams vents his frustrations while waging a two-front war--against
the communists in Vietnam and against the coalition of defeatist Pentacrats
and lawmakers in Washington (arguably the more dangerous of the two foes).

But the real story in A Better War is how Abrams waged a classic
"do more with less" struggle. Sorley reminds us that Abrams assumed command
in 1968 when 500,000 American military were in Vietnam, yet the Vietnamese
countryside remained dangerous--a testament to the bankruptcy of the strategy
of attrition. Four years later, when Abrams departed MACV to become Army
Chief of Staff, only 50,000 Americans remained in country, but well over
90 percent of the countryside was secure. Pacification had worked, and
although South Vietnam's imperfect democracy and military forces had vulnerabilities,
Hanoi's go-for-broke 1972 Easter Offensive had failed, North Vietnam's
army was in disarray, and it was our war to lose from that point forward.

Sorley's narration of opportunity lost cannot help but evoke sadness
and frustration among readers who served in Vietnam or anyone who has wondered
over the years how the superpower that could send men to the moon failed
to prevail over an adversary that Lyndon Johnson called a "two-bit, penny-ante
country." That we actually came closer to victory than most thought is
Sorley's message, delivered with a powerful broadside aimed at the anti-war
movement's love affair with their romanticized image of the Vietnamese
communists, and punctuated by a well-aimed volley directed at the anti-war
movement's allies in the US Congress.

But while Sorley's persuasive thesis holds together and comports with
what this reviewer experienced on the ground in Vietnam, it also reminds
us of an important lesson-learned (or, more accurately, not so well-learned).
Namely, that from 1964 to 1968, because of America's ignorance of Vietnamese
geography, history, culture, and language, the US military consistently
underestimated its adversary, underestimated (and later overestimated)
its ally, and, in so doing, squandered the support for the war that had
existed in the media, in the Congress, and among the American people. As
a result, when Creighton Abrams took the helm and teamed up with Ambassador
Bunker and the South Vietnamese to wage an integrated political, military,
economic, and psychological campaign, it was too late.

This is a book best read in conjunction with other important works,
among which this reviewer numbers William Colby's excellent Lost Victory
and Robert McNamara's In Retrospect (however odious its admissions).
Sorley's scholarship confirms what should have been self-evident for years:
most of the 2.6 million American men and women who served in Vietnam can
hold their heads high, while those senior managers (not leaders) in Washington
who mandated a losing strategy and then gave up on the war at a time when
victory was within reach richly deserve the increasing share of the blame
that historians and scholars like Lewis Sorley are laying at their feet.

The Secret War
Against Hanoi: Kennedy and Johnson's Use of Spies, Saboteurs, and Covert
Warriors in North Vietnam. By Richard H. Shultz, Jr. New York: HarperCollins,
1999. 268 pages. $27.50. Reviewed by Colonel Richard S. Friedman, USA
Ret., who served in a variety of intelligence assignments in the Army
and subsequently with the Central Intelligence Agency.

Richard H. Shultz, Jr., is director of the International Security Studies
Program and associate professor of international politics at the Fletcher
School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. In The Secret War Against
Hanoi, he reveals how in 1963 President Kennedy became displeased with
lack of progress in CIA guerrilla operations against North Vietnam, transferred
operational control of the covert war to the Department of Defense, and
demanded results. Notwithstanding the President's strong directive, however,
results were slow in coming. Policymakers and senior military leaders had
little interest in or understanding of special operations and resisted
expansion of the secret war.

Between 1964 and 1972, the United States nonetheless executed a secret
campaign of covert operations against North Vietnam controlled by the Pentagon's
Special Operations Group under the cover name "Studies and Observation
Group" (SOG). This was the United States' largest and most complex covert
operation since World War II. When SOG finally did get started in January
1964, after the inauguration of President Lyndon Johnson, it was consistently
hampered by micromanagement from the National Security Council, State Department,
and Pentagon leadership.

Despite these restraints, SOG conducted its intense secret war for eight
years, throughout the Johnson and Nixon administrations, and managed to
execute a range of operations, including the dispatch of numerous spies
to North Vietnam and creation of a sophisticated triple-cross deception
program, psychological warfare through a notional guerrilla movement, manipulating
North Vietnamese POWs, kidnapping citizens, and other dirty tricks. SOG
conducted commando raids against Hanoi's coast and navy, as well as operations
on the Ho Chi Minh Trail to kill enemy soldiers and destroy supplies. Eventually
the Pentagon's spies, saboteurs, and secret warriors produced results that
were frequently spectacular and occasionally disastrous. Because SOG operations
were highly classified and politically sensitive, the story remained largely
untold after the war ended.

The Secret War Against Hanoi is based on interviews with 60 officers
who ran SOG's covert programs and the senior officials who directed this
secret war, including Robert McNamara, Walt Rostow, Richard Helms, William
Colby, William Westmoreland, and Victor Krulak. The author also had access
to thousands of pages of recently declassified top-secret SOG documents.
This volume is the first definitive and comprehensive account of the covert
paramilitary and espionage campaign and contains many revealing disclosures.

Additional insights into the war also have been gained as a result of
Washington and Hanoi's efforts to normalize relations since the early 1990s.
Many Americans with incompatible views on the war have traveled to Vietnam
in the past decade. Veterans of the war returned to revisit old battlefields,
remember those who were killed, and meet some of those whom they had fought.
Businessmen regarded Vietnam as the next Asian economic miracle and wished
to gain commercial preference; for them the war was now ancient history.
Finally, there were the peace activists. Although they had opposed US involvement
in Vietnam, few had ever been afforded the opportunity to meet directly
with North Vietnamese leaders. This began to change in the 1990s as conferences
were arranged in Hanoi and elsewhere.

Dr. Shultz describes one session in 1995 involving an exchange between
a human rights activist from Minnesota and a distinguished North Vietnamese
army (NVA) colonel who had fought many battles against the Americans:

Colonel Bui Tin was not an ordinary NVA commander. On 30 April
1975, Hanoi accorded him the unique honor to accept the unconditional surrender
of the South Vietnamese regime. Earlier, in December 1963 he was involved
in the North Vietnamese Politburo decision to expand use of the Ho Chi
Minh Trail. In conversation with American peace activists, he was asked
a number of questions about the war. At the end of the meeting, he was
queried, "Colonel, was there anything the US could have done to prevent
your victory?" In the dogma of the antiwar movement, the answer was always
an unequivocal "No." The peace movement always believed North Vietnam had
the "mandate of heaven" on its side and there was nothing the US and its
military could do--Hanoi's victory was preordained.

The colonel's response was a devastating refutation of protest
movement orthodoxy. Bui Tin observed that to prevent North Vietnam's victory
the United States would have to have "cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail inside
Laos." When the activist protested, Colonel Tin repeated, "Yes, cut the
Ho Chi Minh Trail inside Laos. If Johnson had granted General Westmoreland's
request to enter Laos and block the Ho Chi Minh Trail, Hanoi could not
have won the war." He went on to explain the strategic importance of the
trail for Hanoi's escalation and conduct of the war--it was the only way
"to bring sufficient military power to bear on the fighting in the South."

There are important and tangible lessons to be learned from Washington's
conduct of the war against Hanoi, and from its conduct of the secret war.
Presidents who consider covert special operations to meet 21st-century
threats to vital US interests may wish to reflect that successful and unsuccessful
operations of the secret war in Vietnam made little difference in the end--Washington
seems never to have developed an effective overall strategy.

The Philippine
War, 1899-1902. By Brian McAllister Linn. Lawrence: University Press
of Kansas, 2000. 427 pages. $39.95. Reviewed by Dr. Stanley L. FaIk
(Colonel, AUS Ret.),former Chief Historian of the Air Force
and author of Bataan: The March of Death and other works.

Under the terms of the December 1898 treaty ending the Spanish-American
War, the United States gained possession of the Philippine Islands, a distant
archipelago whose inhabitants had for years been struggling to gain independence
from Spain and who were now equally determined to prevent American rule
of the islands. The United States thus inherited an ongoing insurgency
which it would be hard-pressed to suppress. To do so, indeed, would take
two and one-half years, 7,000 American casualties, and a considerable expenditure
of money and resources.

The Philippine War, as Brian Linn calls this difficult mixture of combat
and civic action, repression and conciliation, is one of those controversial
episodes in American history that generates more heat and less understanding
than proper analysis requires. Much of the literature on the war is highly
critical of its conduct, focusing on its brutality and atrocities and ignoring
the constructive pacification and humane social and political reform that
more generally characterized the American effort. Linn takes a far more
balanced view. Professor of History at Texas A&M University and Visiting
Professor of Military History at the US Army War College during the 1999-2000
academic year, he has written widely on this and related subjects and brings
to the controversy an impressive scholarly background and depth of knowledge.
His meticulously researched, clearly written, and soundly documented account
is the definitive study of this often misunderstood war.

Linn's book is a detailed operational history of military action to
pacify and restore order to the islands. As he points out, there was no
common pattern of events throughout the archipelago. "The war varied greatly
from island to island, town to town, even village to village." Fighting
in central Luzon most resembled conventional warfare, but most areas saw
a mixture of hit-and-run raids, guerrilla and counterguerrilla operations,
or long periods of quiet interrupted by sporadic outbursts of combat. Half
the Philippines saw no fighting at all; elsewhere there was intense action,
atrocities on both sides, and much destruction. The insurgents' efforts
were poorly led, uncoordinated, driven by local ambitions, and without
universal popular support or ready sources of funds or supplies. US Army
operations were sometimes hampered by limitations on resources, inadequate
intelligence, poor communications, vague directives from Washington, and
stateside political considerations.

Linn clears up much confusion about the nature of the war and refutes
old mythology. He is particularly convincing in analyzing the charges that
American pacification efforts were savage campaigns against defenseless
Filipinos, marked by atrocities and devastation. There were indeed atrocities
committed, by Filipinos as well as by Americans, particularly in the last
stages of the war. But these instances were not typical. The real situation
was a complex and often misunderstood combination of varied actions and
situations, seen too often by critics "through an ideological perspective
developed during the 1960s." The idea that "an expeditionary force averaging
some 25,000 combat troops terrorized over seven million people into subjugation"
conforms with neither facts nor common sense.

How did such a small force manage to pacify such a large archipelago
in what Linn calls "the most successful counterinsurgency campaign in history"?
A key element was the broad humane program of civic action which restored
order, formed local governments, organized public health programs, and
built schools, roads, bridges, and sewer systems. It was not difficult
for the local population to differentiate between these constructive efforts
and the often brutal, terroristic actions of insurgent forces.

The US Navy also played an important role. Its blockade denied Filipino
revolutionaries foreign arms shipments and prevented inter-island or coastal
movement of men and supplies. At the same time, the Navy gave Army forces
a significant amphibious capability and a ready means of shifting troops
and equipment throughout the archipelago.

But the most important factor in American victory was the effectiveness
of the limited numbers of men the Army could commit to the campaign. Good
leadership, proper training, high morale, the adaptability of the ordinary
soldier to local conditions, and the open-order tactics developed by the
Army a decade earlier all contributed to success in the field. Linn also
gives high marks to the Model 1898 Krag-Jorgensen rifle, a .30-caliber,
five-shot magazine weapon, the first US army rifle to use smokeless powder.
"Rugged, reliable, accurate, and powerful," it was in fact inferior to
the 7mm Mauser that many of the insurgents carried, having obtained them
by one means or another from the Spaniards. Furthermore, only US regulars
had the Krag; American volunteer units were still firing the single-shot,
black powder 1873 Springfield. But the Americans, unlike the Filipinos,
had an unlimited supply of rifles, parts, and reliable ammunition and were
well supported by field artillery and heavily armed gunboats.

All of these factors gave American troops a decisive edge over their
opponents. Indeed, notes Linn, "Far from being the bloody-handed butcher
of fable, the average soldier in the Philippines was probably as good as
or better than any in this nation's history." The Philippine War
is a worthy testimony to this point, and well worth close study by anyone
interested in a systematic examination of the American pacification effort
in that troubled archipelago.

This War Really
Matters: Inside the Fight for Defense Dollars. By George C. Wilson.
Washington: CQ Press, A Division of Congressional Quarterly, Inc. Reviewed
by Lieutenant General Richard G. Trefry, USA Ret., Inspector General
of the Army, 1978-83, and Military Assistant to the President, 1989-92.

George Wilson is an experienced writer with great expertise in things
military. Considering how few people really are aware of (much less understand)
the processes of providing monetary resources for the services, he has
written a book that is a little jewel.

In the Preamble to our Constitution we find the words, "We the people
. . . provide for the common defense." The number of people, military or
civilian, who have any cognizance of how this is actually accomplished
is pitifully small.

For the average Army officer or civilian who comes on assignment to
the Pentagon, whether on the Army Staff, the Joint Staff, or any of the
Secretariats, the experience is unnerving. First of all, little about the
systems and processes described in this book is taught in any of the service
schools beyond a few hours of wiring diagrams coupled with acronyms seldom
translated. And those classes are probably taught on a hot afternoon in
August when the air conditioning is broken. The day of destiny and intellectual
disaster arrives when our neophyte action officers report for duty and
find an entirely new language called the Planning, Programming, and Budgeting
System (PPBS), which in the Army is called the Planning, Programming, and
Budgeting Execution System (PPBES). Dealing with a new language composed
entirely of acronyms, not only our action officers but also our generals
find themselves in a state of utter bewilderment. But even before they
understand the definitions of PPBS or PPBES, they understand fully that
it means money and the staff of life for the military services.

George Wilson has attempted to "make the defense budget process understandable,
[for] there is no denying that it is a complex process with many players
and parts. . . . The tour I have arranged moves from one event to another
in the order they happened. I did this in hopes of holding your interest
as we move along without skipping any of the important fights in the political
war for defense dollars."

Admirably, I believe that he has accomplished his intention, but I would
qualify that statement by saying that if you read the book you will have
a good idea of how the process works at the highest levels, where the players
range from the President no deeper than the chairmen of the principal committees
in the Congress and the highest levels of the Department of Defense. The
process is so complex that it takes 239 pages to describe the game involving
just the principals. This is not a book that one can read rapidly, and
it does require concentration. The rewards, however, are multiple. In fact,
there is a danger in that the reader may believe when he completes his
effort he has a thorough understanding of how the process works. The warning
I would provide is that Mr. Wilson fortunately does not describe in detail
any of the scrimmages and food fights within and among the services that
lead from the basic ideas required to resource the Department of Defense.
If he did, the book would probably weigh 25 pounds. I am reminded of a
slide used in classroom presentations describing the PPBES. It read like
this:

The PPBES Problem . . .When faced with a 20-year threat,
The government responds with a 15-year plan,
In a 6-year defense program,
Managed by 3-year personnel,
Attempting to develop a 2-year budget,
Which in reality is funded by a 1-year appropriation,
Which is typically 4-6 months late,
Actually formulated over a 3-day weekend,
And approved in a 1-hour decision briefing!

This system was brought to the Pentagon in 1962 by Mr. McNamara and
Mr. Hitch. It has always been a source of wonderment to me that no one
has appeared on the scene since then to improve the system. Recently, I
have come to believe that one of the reasons it has not been improved is
that the system is so difficult and complex in its totality that no one
would know where to start. If they thought they did, they would immediately
refrain from action because whatever action would be taken, however innocent
or well intentioned, the result would be comparable to pulling the plug
on the Hoover Dam while standing on the spillway.

This book will not give you the depth of Lake Meade but it will give
you the length that the Colorado River is backed up--which, if we think
about it, is almost back to its source. Mr. Wilson is owed a debt of gratitude
for his efforts at clarification so that we might at least discern the
problem.

There is much to be learned from reading this book. I would recommend
it as a basic primer on PPBS at Carlisle, Leavenworth, and the other service
colleges and schools.

In 1988, Tony LeTissier published The Battle of Berlin (St. Martin's
Press), an account of German and Soviet operations in and around Berlin
from 16 April to 2 May 1945. In it, Marshal Ivan Konev, whose sector lay
south of Berlin, figured as a jealous rival, ever eager to steal credit
for the victory from Marshal Georgi Zhukov, who had command in the Berlin
sector; and Josef Stalin maliciously promoted the ensuing dissension. The
present edition shifts the focus dramatically: Stalin now sees "an opportunity
. . . to exploit the bitter rivalry that existed between the two rivals
to ensure his own continuing supremacy in the Soviet Union as the unchallenged
leader and bringer of victory." His means is a kind of steeplechase with
tanks in which the goal is the Reichstag, a burned-out ruin in the center
of Berlin which Soviet wartime propaganda had made a symbol of infamy on
the order of Pearl Harbor, the Maine, and the Alamo.

Presumably to reinforce the "race" metaphor, the first six chapters
in the 1988 edition have now been reduced to three. The original Chapters
7 to 13 (now 6 to 10) are, on the other hand, reprinted almost verbatim;
consequently, the course of events is depicted as it was before the enlargement
of Stalin's role, and the race does not figure as prominently as the title
might lead the reader to expect.

The race begins on 19 April, when, following Stalin's order to encircle
Berlin, Zhukov and Konev launch thrusts around the city. Their objective
is not the Reichstag but Potsdam, on the western outskirts of Berlin. Konev
gives a bravura performance, taking Potsdam on 22 April and going another
ten miles northwest to a junction with Zhukov's force on the Havel River
on the 25th.

However, Konev had by then served his purpose as a player in "Stalin's
plot to eventually humiliate Zhukov by throwing his plans off balance and
introducing Konev in the race for Reichstag. . . . Stalin, having made
his point to Zhukov with the introduction of Konev's troops to the scene,
now saw to it that Konev's ambitions would in turn be thwarted, but neither
was to know of this yet." But Konev did not have long to wait. On the morning
of the 28th, his troops, about to begin their drive on the Reichstag, discovered
that "virtually the whole eastern half of their proposed line of advance
was already occupied by Chuikov's [Colonel General V. I. Chuikov, one of
Zhukov's army commanders] forces." Konev thereupon withdrew from the race,
"defeated by factors arising out of the rivalry between himself and Zhukov
which had been skillfully exploited by Stalin without regard for the military
implications."

No doubt Stalin played Zhukov and Konev against each other, as he had
been doing for several years, but did he really give that game precedence
over military considerations? In his first edition, the author takes notice
of a conference on 1 April in which Stalin informed Zhukov and Konev that
he had reason to believe "the Anglo-American armies were proposing to take
Berlin ahead of the Soviet forces." The second edition makes no reference
to such an intention, and neither edition thereafter depicts the race for
the Reichstag as anything but an intramural contest.

The first two weeks of April, however, appeared to confirm Stalin's
suspicion that the Americans were positioning themselves to snatch Berlin
from under his nose. By the 12th, the US Ninth Army had advanced 35 miles
into the assigned Soviet occupation zone, taken a foothold across the Elbe
River at Magdeburg, and closed to the Elbe at Tangermünde, 53 miles
due west of Berlin. Zhukov was 32 miles from Berlin but still had the Oder
River to cross. The Germans were dug in on the Oder but hardly in evidence
along the Elbe. Stalin, by his lights, was clearly not having to contrive
a race.

On the 16th, Zhukov mounted an effort at a swift breakthrough to Berlin
that within hours degenerated into a seriocomic fiasco. He recovered on
the 19th, but by then, Stalin, whose confidence in his generals was always
easily shaken, had decided to hedge his bet by forestalling the Americans.

Since the presumed other contestant never entered it, the race for Berlin
can be said to have terminated on 25 April with the encirclement completed.
In the meantime, however, another race had emerged. Having cleared central
Germany, the American armies had, on 22 April, begun a fast sweep to the
south. By the 28th, they had taken a full third of the Soviet zone, including
Leipzig, the fourth largest German city, and the US First Army was on the
undefended western border of Czechoslovakia, 80 miles west of Prague. Stalin
therewith acquired compelling military and political reasons for getting
Konev out of Berlin, where his tank armies were tied down 260 miles away
from Prague. Even without American interference, Konev would not accomplish
a proper "liberation" of Prague until 12 April, four days (three by Soviet
count) after the German surrender.

Against the Gods--The
Remarkable Story of Risk. By Peter L. Bernstein. New York: John Wiley
& Sons, 1996. 400 pages. $29.95. Reviewed by Colonel David A. Fastabend,
Executive Officer to the Vice Chief of Staff, US Army.

A military reader will be doubly surprised by Peter L. Bernstein's Against
the Gods. Bernstein brilliantly presents the history of mankind's encounter
with uncertainty and risk, phenomena that pervade every aspect of the military
experience. The first surprise? Bernstein's book is completely silent on
the military dimension of risk. The second surprise? For this very reason,
no military thinker can overlook this text.

Any victim of a high school statistics class might find it "improbable"
that a discourse on risk could be both enthralling and entertaining. But
Bernstein, an economic consultant by trade, beats the odds. Bernstein asserts
that risk--including our efforts to understand it, measure it, and weigh
its consequences--has been one of the prime catalysts of Western society,
and in fact is the principle distinction between modern times and the past.
His rapidly moving narrative portrays the relationship of culture to risk,
employing both philosophy and art to explore the failure of many societies--otherwise
thoroughly sophisticated--to explore quantitative approaches to probability.
From the ancient Greeks, concerned with the present, to the early Christians
and Muslims, with their focus on the future, to the Protestant Reformers,
who associated their future fate inextricably with their own decisions,
Bernstein demonstrates how the intellectual and philosophical underpinnings
for probability theory gradually emerged.

If probability is the grammar of risk, then numbers are the vocabulary.
Bernstein addresses the history of numbers with fascinating insight. DaVinci,
we learn, had the mathematical mastery of today's typical third-grade student.
A well-educated European scholar of the 11th century would not recognize
the number zero. The mathematical symbols "+," "-," and "=" were not known
until the 16th century. By 1545, however, the Renaissance unleashed the
freedom of thought, passion for experimentation, and desire to control
the future that put us on the path to the science of risk management. Bernstein
walks that path--the laws of probability, decision theory, forecasting,
sampling, and utility theory--and makes the entire exercise as pleasant
as a stroll in the woods.

That stroll ends in Bernstein's neighborhood: the world of the stock
market, forecasting, derivatives--and chaos. Herein, paradoxically, lies
the relevance for the military reader. Today's information warrior might
well envy the environment of the modern financial markets. They are driven
by information, and "information dominance" has long been achieved on a
scale that the military experience will never duplicate. The markets work
off a fixed infrastructure that is perfectly hard-wired. Information moves
globally at the speed of light. All decisions and their consequences are
reflected in one common dimension: dollars. Analysis abounds, and it is
freed of the destructive distraction of artillery shards ripping through
the command center and the associated horrors. Yet this world of perfect
information has not brought perfect predictability. The financial markets
have been exercising "information dominance" for several years, and their
report is this: information brings more volatility, not predictability.
Bernstein observes that even as the science of risk management advances
at breakneck speed, "discontinuities, irregularities, and volatilities
seem to be proliferating rather than diminishing."

Bernstein's final chapters include a comprehensive survey of the leading
thinkers of risk management, a field that is so young that most of these
individuals are still alive. In their analysis of financial decisionmaking,
they are discovering what every platoon leader learned the hard way: human
beings are not really rational. The military reader must mine his own insights
from the gems that Bernstein uncovers, but the implications for an Army
committed to information dominance are obvious.

Observers of the information-rich markets tell us that most people overestimate
the amount of information that is available to them. In their mental accounting,
humans demonstrate a pronounced tendency to examine problems in pieces
rather than in the aggregate. Moreover, if there is too much information,
the myopia effect kicks in: relevant information is ignored without hesitation.
Investors revise their beliefs not according to strict rules of rationality,
but by overweighing new information and devaluating older, longer-term
information. We pay excessive attention to low-probability events accompanied
by high drama, and overlook the routine. A phenomenon known as ambiguity
aversion is our preference--to take risk on the basis of known rather than
unknown probabilities, even though the odds are identical or even unfavorable.
The most powerful motivator in the market? Fear of decision regret: human
beings, it seems, are decidedly more loss-averse than return-aggressive.
Prospect theory and market experience demonstrate that people facing losses
will gamble rashly rather than accepting a sure loss.

Paradoxically, our faith in risk management encourages us to take risks
we would not otherwise take. "As civilization has pushed forward, nature's
vagaries have mattered less and the decisions of people have mattered more,"
concludes Bernstein. The market has been a battle lab for the study of
human decisionmaking in a world of apparent information dominance. Do phenomena
such as decision regret, information myopia, and ambiguity aversion extend
to military decisionmaking? Can we afford to ignore such questions? For
the theory of uncertainty and chance in a narrow military context, revisit
Clausewitz. For innovative insights into the brave new world of information
dominance, begin with Bernstein. Ignore Against the Gods at your
own risk.

Taken at the
Flood: Robert E. Lee and Confederate Strategy in the Maryland Campaign
of 1862. By Joseph L. Harsh. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press,
1999. 649 pages. $45.00.

Reviewed by Colonel Len Fullenkamp, USA Ret., Professor of Military
History, US Army War College.

In William Shakespeare's epic play Julius Caesar, Brutus calls
to arms his followers with these words:

Our legions are brimful, our cause is ripe:
The enemy increaseth every day;
We, at the height, are ready to decline.
There is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the flood, leads
on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries;
On such a full sea are we now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves or lose our ventures.

And so it was for the Confederacy in late summer 1862.

On the evening of his victory at 2d Manassas, General Robert E. Lee
wrote confidently to Jefferson Davis, "The present seems to be the most
propitious time since the commencement of the war for the Confederate Army
to enter Maryland." If Davis did not concur at least he did not object,
and shortly thereafter Lee undertook operations in Maryland, which ultimately
led to the single bloodiest day of the war. Indeed, to some, Antietam was
the turning point in the war, marking the beginning of the end for the
Confederacy. But to focus an examination of the Antietam Campaign on 17
September, the day of the battle, is in Joseph Harsh's judgment to enter
the movie in mid-reel. To understand Lee's campaign objectives, his operational
plans and tactical orders, one must properly begin at the beginning.

Confederate Tide Rising serves as an introduction to Harsh's
comprehensive campaign study. In six chapters tied to major events or pivotal
decisions, Harsh traces the evolution of Confederate strategy from the
spring of 1861 to late summer 1862, or in his words from "Sumter to 2d
Manassas." As the chapters unfold, the reader is introduced to the principal
strategic architects of Southern strategy, including Davis, Lee, P. G.
T. Beauregard, and Joseph Johnston, to name only a few. In summary fashion,
but no less thorough for being so--thanks to extensive endnotes, several
excellent appendixes, and sharply reasoned analysis--the author critiques
Davis's performance as commander-in-chief and his formulation and implementation
of Confederate national military strategy, the much maligned "offensive-defensive."
Although criticism of Davis as both strategist and commander-in-chief has
become a staple of Civil War literature, what sets apart this critique
is the evenhandedness with which Harsh treats his subject. Yet as good
as the analysis of Davis is, clearly the central figure in this study is
Robert E. Lee, and the primary focus of the work is Lee's generalship.

About Lee's generalship much has been written. For decades after the
war he enjoyed almost uniform praise for his leadership in what became
known as "the Lost Cause." Later historians such as Thomas Connelly (The
Marble Man) and Alan T. Noland (Lee Considered) have rendered
more critical judgments. Most often Lee has been criticized for his obsession
with protecting Virginia while states in the western Confederacy fell to
Union forces. Others found fault with his combative nature, his willingness
to engage Union forces in battle, too often trading precious Southern lives
for strategic gains too meager to justify the human cost. Harsh disagrees
with this analysis and summarizes his thesis as follows:

Critics have sometimes depicted him [Lee] as a general without
an overall strategy, a brilliant practitioner who lacked farsightedness.
This has not been my conclusion. It is possible that Lee's perception of
the war was wrong and that his prescription for victory was mistaken. But
it has not seemed possible to me that Lee acted without serious and constant
regard to pursuing the cause he believed best suited to bring success to
the Confederacy.

Studiously avoiding hagiography, Harsh seeks to portray Lee's generalship
as consistent with the situation at hand. "Lee," he writes,

. . . took command in the field as a pragmatist. During the
first year of the war he had the time and the opportunity to form a comprehensive
view of the struggle. He came to recognize that the Confederacy had at
best a long-shot chance to gain independence. He knew that the imbalance
of resources that existed between the North and the South, coupled with
the laws of mathematics, worked inexorably against his country. He recognized
that as long as the North remained determined to subdue the South, the
Confederacy could not win the war. Confederate victory could come only
from a Union abandonment of the conflict.

Armed with that knowledge and with a perspective gained at great price
over the first 16 months of the war, Lee found himself in September 1862
confronted with what Harsh believes was the pivotal strategic decision
of the war. The tide had started to rise with the victories in the Seven
Days Battles, which, while not decisive, succeeded in pushing the Federal
Army away from Richmond. It crested with Lee's victory on the banks of
Bull Run and the repulse of Major General John Pope's Federal Army. Confederate
Tide Rising ends with Lee's decision to carry operations into Maryland,
a decision arrived at in context and with the full knowledge of all that
had transpired in the war thus far.

Like Stephen Sears' Landscape Turned Red and James V. Murfin's
The
Gleam of Bayonets--excellent studies of the battle--in Taken at
the Flood Harsh examines the Antietam Campaign but with emphasis at
primarily the strategic and operational levels of war. Tactical vignettes
where used serve to justify or explain operational or strategic decisions.
For example, Lee's placement of his line of battle on the eastern bank
of the Potomac River is a tactical disposition adopted for operational
and strategic considerations. By putting himself in a position from which
he could threaten Major General George McClellan's flank or rear should
the Federal forces move to attack Stonewall Jackson's troops at Harpers
Ferry, Lee was grasping the operational initiative and in so doing protecting
his strategic objective.

Harsh's campaign study is divided into ten chapters, each devoted to
a brief period of time (two or three days) or a crucial event, thus giving
Harsh ample space to explore Lee's evolving campaign strategy in meticulous
detail. For example, the infamous lost order, Special Order 191, which
fell into Union hands and transformed the nature of the campaign, is analyzed
in great detail. Likewise, thoroughly examined are Lee's decisions to defend
the passes in South Mountain, to stand at Sharpsburg, to give battle rather
than withdraw to Virginia, and finally his seemingly defiant and perhaps
foolhardy decision to stand in place, battered though his army was, and
accept battle on 18 September.

Although this study emphasizes the strategic and operational levels
of war, Harsh demonstrates from time to time his grasp of tactical details
and his exceptional ability to write about them. Two examples come immediately
to mind. His narration of the account of Daniel Harvey Hill's defense of
South Mountain is lucid and gripping. Even more so, his rendition of the
arrival of Cobb's brigade, McLaws' division, on the Antietam field at a
crucial moment is graphic and conveys the powerful emotions that must have
burned within Lee as he fought the battle.

Throughout the narrative Harsh sustains an objective yet often critical
assessment of Lee's generalship at all three levels of war--tactical, operational,
and strategic. When, in his judgment, Lee has made a mistake or misread
the situation, Harsh says so directly, and with closely reasoned arguments.
As a consequence, the reader is given a much needed and long overdue reevaluation
of Lee as both a general and a strategist.

While these books primarily focus on Lee's generalship, Harsh nonetheless
provides a remarkably balanced critique of George McClellan's generalship.
This, one hopes, is a promise of things to come, for Harsh has much yet
to say about the Antietam Campaign. Among the later volumes planned for
this series is a similarly detailed study of McClellan's generalship from
the spring of 1861 through August 1862; the generalship of McClellan in
the Maryland Campaign; and a grand-tactical and tactical study of Federal
and Confederate generalship at the Battle of Antietam. Also in the works
is a book-length appendix of facts, data, and points of discussion on the
Maryland Campaign.

When completed, Joseph Harsh's multivolume work promises to be the most
detailed study of one of the most important campaigns of the Civil War.
Not only those who enjoy reading about the American Civil War but serious
students of the profession of arms will want to own all of these books.

Morality and
Contemporary Warfare. By James Turner Johnson. New Haven, Conn.: Yale
University Press, 1999. 259 pages. $25.00. Reviewed by Colonel Anthony
E. Hartle, author of Moral Issues in Military Decision Making
and Professor of Philosophy, US Military Academy.

When we discuss the justification for the use of military force, the
influence of the just war tradition permeates our commentary--whether we
are consciously aware of that influence or not. The terms of the just war
dialogue constitute part of our cultural heritage. James T. Johnson's book
sharpens our awareness of that heritage and argues that the concept of
just war is fully relevant to the 21st century. Johnson presents a strong
case.

Along with Paul Ramsey and Michael Walzer, Johnson deserves credit for
bringing the just war tradition back into the mainstream of American discussion
of warfare and international politics. When the war in Vietnam raised the
justification of war to painful prominence, these authors led the way,
both in the United States and in Europe, in showing how just war theory
provides answers to critical questions about the use of national military
power.

Michael Ignatieff and others have noted that in the age of "virtual
war," rhetoric and perceptions shape reality to an unprecedented degree.
Concepts of just war provide important tools both for decisionmaking and
for "spin control." From citizens to Presidents, we need to know the difference
between the two applications. This book can help.

In Johnson's view, three distinct periods since the Second World War
emerge with respect to the analysis of moral issues in war. The first period,
during the 1950s and 1960s, focused on nuclear war between the United States
and the Soviet Union. The discussion centered on ensuring national survival
and avoiding annihilation. Issues related to the war in Vietnam dominated
the second period, notably intervention, counterinsurgency, and the rise
of anti-war views. In the 1980s discussion returned to the nuclear warfare
arena, but the concern was global nuclear holocaust, a wider discussion
that featured post-Vietnam arguments against war of any kind, most particularly
war involving nuclear weapons. That period also examined how to treat conflict
at the low-intensity end of the spectrum of conflict without precipitating
a nuclear confrontation in the bipolar world. With the end of the Cold
War, however, we have clearly moved into a new era, one marked by localized
"wars of difference."

In the brutal wars of the 1990s, ethnic, religious, and cultural differences
have generated profound challenges. We now focus on "controlling war."
This new phase of moral consciousness, Johnson argues, highlights civil
war, ethnic conflict, humanitarian intervention, and questions about the
responsibilities of the global community concerning the ugly genocidal
wars of ethnic and religious conflict of the last decade. The suffering
of noncombatants figures prominently in all these concerns.

Thus the central themes Johnson treats in his discussion are "the question
of when and under what conditions military intervention in [localized]
conflicts may be justified; whether it is possible in such warfare to fight
according to the established international laws of armed conflict; and
how to define international responsibility for protection of victims of
such conflict." Johnson's analysis shows us how to use the just war tradition
to help answer such questions.

Recent events indicate that we can expect more opportunities for intervention,
even though "success" has been illusory. Many in uniform will agree with
Johnson, however, when he says that "perhaps the most difficult problem
posed by contemporary warfare, all in all, is the difficulty of achieving
a stable, secure ending to it." Bosnia, Kosovo, and central Africa certainly
support that observation. Without a secure, stable ending, those who intervene
face high costs and no basis for claiming success.

On another front, Johnson stakes out a more controversial claim. He
observes that international war crimes trials appear to be moving into
customary international law, and here he argues for war crimes trials in
most cases and against "no-fault" resolution. Morally meritorious as that
stance may seem, ongoing events in Sierra Leone raise troubling questions
about insisting on justice and war crimes trials after a conflict is brought
to a close, since post-conflict guarantees of immunity and shared power
are often necessary elements in resolving murderous confrontations. I understand
his priority on the nature of the peace sought (peace with justice), but
to those threatened with violence and death at any moment, the termination
of the killing may well be the ultimate priority because of its implacable
immediacy. Johnson also does not explore the tension between national sovereignty
and international jurisdiction, an issue that will make the International
Criminal Court a major political concern.

Some passages (and long sentences) will leave readers with questions.
In his closing discussion, for example, Johnson presents his "solution"
for ameliorating conflict between cultures, recommending "institutional
efforts to build mutual understanding and respect across cultural boundaries
and to create cooperative forms of living in which each party to the conflict
helps to support the other and comes to depend on the other's support in
a society defined by mutual and reciprocal cooperation." Most of us will
agree with the sentiment embedded here, but the advice does not seem particularly
helpful to the Kosovar Albanians and Serbs in Mitrovica, or to the Hutus
and Tutsis in Rwanda. In Johnson's defense, I must note that truly helpful
advice is hard to find.

Morality and Contemporary Warfare is an academic book, to be
sure, and does not have the compelling power of an Ignatieff discourse,
but Johnson's discussion is orderly, usually persuasive, and frequently
illuminating as he makes the case for the relevance and value of an updated
just war theory. He shows us how to reason through the process of deciding
when we are justified in intervening in other people's wars. Few decisions
by our national leaders will be more important.

This is the first complete biography of Eisenhower in many years. Consequently,
it benefits greatly from materials not available to previous scholars,
including Eisenhower's diaries, letters and (of course) the abundant scholarship
on Eisenhower in the intervening time. The result is a workmanlike and
highly readable volume.

All biographers strike a balance between narrating events sequentially
and interpreting the motivations and thoughts of the subject. Geoffrey
Perret's is stronger on the narrative, weaker on the interpretation. Partly,
as he stresses repeatedly, that is because of the inherent inscrutability
of Eisenhower's thoughts and feelings, apparently even to Eisenhower himself.
Eisenhower's inability to express his real thoughts and feelings is documented
thoroughly in his correspondence with his wife and son.

Unfortunately, Perret attempts at numerous crucial points to pierce
Eisenhower's emotional opacity by means of pure speculation about what
must have been the case, rather than with any supporting evidence as to
Eisenhower's inner life. One can identify with the biographer's frustration
at having so little to work with in this area and still wish for less pure
speculation to fill the void.

Perret goes a long way to counter some common assumptions about Eisenhower.
He documents Eisenhower's remarkable writing abilities, for example. Similarly,
his intellectual acumen shines through, as well as the unique combination
of skills needed for strategic leadership at the head of the most complex
coalition in human history and again as a two-term President of the United
States.

The newly available evidence of Eisenhower's papers allows Perret to
shine fresh light on major issues such as his relationship with Field Marshal
Montgomery, his real thoughts and feelings about MacArthur and Nixon, among
others, and whether he did or did not have a wartime affair with Kay Summersby.

The author is clear and unflinching in his assessment of Eisenhower's
weaknesses. The details of his appointment to the presidency of Columbia
University, and his colossal failure in the position, are carefully explained
and assessed. Similarly, the political processes by which he ended up with
Richard Nixon as his vice-presidential running-mate and his handling of
the McCarthy hearings reveal the limitations of even great military leaders
in dealing with the somewhat unfamiliar terrain of the political world.

Eisenhower emerges from close study as a figure of remarkably rich and
balanced abilities. Amid the portraits of the major figures of World War
II, Perret's portrayal makes it abundantly clear that Ike, and Ike alone,
possessed the wide range of personal and professional competencies to exercise
leadership in such a complex environment.

Geoffrey Perret's biography is a thorough and eminently readable overview
of the whole of a life. One wishes it provided more of a sense of the inner
complexity of the man. But one also suspects that lack is not in the biographer's
abilities, but in Eisenhower's own self-awareness. Might the very lack
of deep self-awareness and introspection have contributed to the Ike's
range of abilities? One puts down the biography left wondering about the
connection between introspection, inner motivation, and successful strategic
leadership.

The Last Parallel, A Marine's War Journal,by Martin Russ,
appeared in 1957. That account, by a 22-year-old who experienced the last
seven months of the Korean War as a corporal in a rifle platoon, was one
of the few fine books by a participant published in the immediate aftermath
of "the forgotten war." Forty-two years later, in Breakout
Russ
describes the Marine Corps' finest moment, the fight from the Chosin Reservoir
to Hungnam in October-December 1950. His latest book benefits from some
30 sources listed by the author, but the strength and authority of the
book come from the author's extensive interviews and correspondence with
survivors. Firsthand accounts are enhanced by the author's crisp prose,
tight organization, and obvious love affair with the Marine Corps. Russ
blends the raw material of interviews with insights from his own combat
experience and his later reflection on what it all means a half century
after the events described.

The Corps' specialties are assault and a willingness to sacrifice. It
attracts tough kids, filters out the indeterminate and irrelevant, and
turns life in its bosom into the accomplishment of specified tasks determined
by easily recognized authority. It knows what it wants. It says, we will
demand much of you and you will be a better man for the experience. Young
tigers accepted the challenge long before a President admonished Americans
to ask what we can do for our country. Marine recruits know that committing
to the Corps means playing by the rules of the Corps: life is hard, simple,
and--for those who measure up--gratifying.

The challenge to the First Marine Division as 1950 wound down--cut off
from friendly forces to the south, engulfed by numerically superior Chinese
forces, and subjected to sub-zero temperatures--was elemental. The breakout
demanded a simple plan, gritty determination, discipline, and the effective
use of the firepower of individual Marines, crew-served weapons, indirect
fires, and tactical air. Perhaps most vital to this finest moment was the
willingness of Marines to die for one another. Everything about Marine
Corps training and tradition points to success in extremis, precisely
what the near-hopeless situation demanded.

The simple plan, as isolated Marine elements fought to link up with
one another, was to secure the lines of communication--a road--so that
the wounded and heavy equipment could be moved south. The infantry had
to get to the high ground in conditions that found the numerous enemy and
bitter cold conspiring to defeat the Marines. Tenacious dedication to the
simple but demanding task, plus tactical air support, allowed the division
to survive. This is a glorious story of fighting men who took the kinds
of losses that often resulted in defeat and surrender. The First Marine
Division destroyed whatever the Chinese army put near the division and
overcame Mother Nature's best shot.

Russ is unrelenting in his criticism of the US Army, from top to bottom.
General Douglas MacArthur was overconfident, separating the Eighth Army
from X Corps with the rugged Taebek Range, thus denying the two wings direct
communication. Major General Charles Willoughby refused to believe that
the Chinese would join the war, even after Chinese soldiers were captured
in North Korea. Russ calls X Corps Commander Major General Edward Almond
"the sybaritic general," issuing impossible orders to the Marines and out
of touch with the tactical situation. "Marine senior officers regarded
him as militarily unintelligent." Contempt for the "doggies" was "reawakened"
in the Pusan Perimeter in August. It was heightened at Inchon in September
when Almond was given command of the landing force ("insult enough, since
amphibious operations were the Marines' specialty," an observation that
fails to note that the assault on the European Continent on 6 June 1944,
the granddaddy of amphibious operations, was an Army show). And it was
confirmed in October-December 1950 as odds and ends of Army survivors failed
to do the hard jobs, like getting up on the high ground to secure the march
of the main body to the south.

As an admirer of elite units and a believer in team bonding as the cement
of unit cohesion, your reviewer has real respect for the United States
Marine Corps, and I commend this book to the current reader. However, intellectual
honesty demands that a reviewer point out errors in fact and lack of balance
in judgment. The further Russ departs from his deserved paean to the Marines,
the thinner the ice he treads.

First, T. R. Fehrenbach's This Kind of War and S. L. A. Marshall's
The
River and the Gauntlet balance severe criticism of the Army with stories
of individual valor; Russ found no brave soldiers. None. Second, Russ names
Army cowards while knowingly concealing the identity of cowardly enlisted
and commissioned Marines, the political commissar's and propagandist's
method. Third, aware that unit cohesion is essential to military success--indeed
that's the major point of his book--Russ nevertheless compares the performance
of organic Marine units to gaggles of soldiers slapped together in extreme
circumstances. Fourth, Walton Walker was a Lieutenant General, not a Major
General, in the period addressed by Russ. The point is that gratuitous
slams of the Army detract from the story of the Chosin Few, a performance
that belongs at the top of a long list of Marine Corps achievements.

Expect a deluge of Korean War books in the coming three years. June
2000 marked the 50th anniversary of the beginning of that war, and various
events from 1950 to 1953 will be commemorated.

The New Terrorism:
Fanaticism and the Arms of Mass Destruction. By Walter Laquer. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1999. 312 pages. $30.00. Reviewed by
Major Glenn Schweitzer, USAR, a counterterrorism analyst for the Department
of Defense at the Pentagon, Washington, D.C.

Walter Laquer asks unsettling questions:

What if weapons of mass destruction had been at the disposal
of the Unabomber, a person with considerable scientific knowledge? Would
he have hesitated to use them? Is it not likely that sooner or later another
person or small group of persons with similar but perhaps more radical
views or fewer scruples will acquire such weapons?

Someday the United States will have to deal with an effective terrorist
attack using a chemical or biological weapon on US soil; the question is
when. As the population increases, the number of psychopaths increases,
and given the increasing ability for individuals to access scientific and
technological information, it is only a matter of time before some wacko
with an obscure agenda decides he is going to transform society by killing
people in large numbers.

The New Terrorism is the best single book currently available
on the history and psychology of terrorists ranging from animal rights
activists and UFO cultists to religious extremists. Author Walter Laquer
of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is one of
America's most distinguished political theorists and has published key
works over the past few decades not only on terrorism but on other political
subjects as well. Like his previous books on the subject--Terrorism
(1977, reprinted as The Age of Terrorism in 1985) and the Terrorism
Reader (1978 and 1987)--Laquer's study of the subject is both broad
in scope and keenly informed. Laquer is an excellent writer and he does
a superb job of not falling into the traps of tedious academic jargon or
breathless newspaper journalism. These characteristics will give The
New Terrorism a shelf-life that will far exceed most of the books being
published on the subject.

Despite the "new" in the title, Laquer does a better job looking backward
at the history of terrorism than addressing how it will evolve in the future.
Laquer does not deal with policy issues such as what the United States
should do to defend against terrorism with weapons of mass destruction
(WMD), nor does he grapple with practical subjects such as what types of
weapons are in vogue among terrorists this year. The book is devoid of
charts, graphs, and statistics that would provide readers a perspective
on current terrorist trends. Despite its title, Laquer does not deal extensively
with the issues of WMD terrorism or cyberterrorism. One particular strength
of The New Terrorism is that unlike many books on the subject, it
does have sections devoted to obscure causes such as animal rights terrorists
and the US militia movements. A consistent frustration in reading the book
is that Laquer lets his opinions about the worthiness of the various causes
intrude into the text. This style of writing may be suitable for newspaper
opinion columns, but it is a bit jarring in a book-length study.

One of the greater strengths of the book lies in the unusual manner
in which the history of violent extremism is linked with psychology, literature,
and popular culture in Laquer's quest to understand the personality of
terrorists and what makes them tick. Laquer's discussion flows easily from
books read by American right-wing extremists, such as the Turner Diaries
(which apparently helped shape Timothy McVeigh's views when he planned
the 1995 Murrah Federal Building bombing in Oklahoma), to fictional depictions
of violent psychopaths such as the protagonist in the classic Stanley Kubrick
film The Clockwork Orange. If nothing else, the book certainly convinces
the reader that there are numerous reasons for people to commit acts of
extreme violence and that it is difficult to stereotype terrorists beyond
the obvious statements that they are dissatisfied with society, usually
have little regard for human life, and are committed to their cause.

Despite the book's strengths, it has some significant weaknesses as
well. Laquer's discussion of the phenomena of Islamist terrorism is somewhat
superficial. Military officers seeking to understand the complex nature
of the global threat posed by groups such as the Usama Bin Ladin network
will be left wanting. Likewise, readers seeking details about specific
terrorist weapons and tactics--including WMD--will find that the The
New Terrorism does not fully address those subjects.

Military school libraries should definitely purchase The New Terrorism
as an essential part of their collections. As for military officers in
the field who are likely to read only one book on terrorism, Bruce Hoffman's
Inside
Terrorism (Columbia University Press, 1998) is probably more pertinent
(in fact, the cover blurb for that book is by Walter Laquer, who states
that it is "the best work at present available"). Hoffman's Inside Terrorism
is a much more tightly focused book than Laquer's The New Terrorism,
and it does a better job of discussing the current environment in which
terrorism is taking place.

That is not to diminish the values of Laquer's book, however. Of particular
note, his bibliographic essay is outstanding. It is probably one of the
most comprehensive and up-to-date listings of published works on terrorism
available. For those seeking to do further research on terrorism, this
bibliographic essay is an excellent place to begin. Laquer's recommendations
of what books to look at for more information on any given terrorism topic
are superb.